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19th November, 2021

There are times I notice myself imitating others when I’m trying to be original. I hear it when I play back some episodes of this podcast. Beyond the cringeworthy experience of hearing my ‘telephone voice’ played back to me, bewildered to have how I sound revealed to me, there lies some peaks at a pattern.

The pattern is that I notice the influence of other podcasts I listen to on the way I put a message across, even though I primarily speak unscripted. Maybe it’s because of it. I don’t know. All I DO know is the self doubt that washes over me when I have these hopelessly meta realisations of what I think is creative coming across (to me, my number one critic, at least) as purely derivative.

The silver lining in that cloud came to me via a dear friend, an artist trying to make his own way in design. That reminder came in the form of the prompt to steal like an artist. It comes from Austin Kleon’s wildly popular book of the same name. The paradox of being persuaded to steal at the same time as trying to be an artist, a creative, does more than sell Austin’s book. It near-instantaneously provides us with the reminder of how originality comes about.

I cringed at the imitations leaking into my recordings because, in the moment, I forgot that creative acts become more than the sum of the imitating parts. Imitation is part of the inspiration that brings new things into being.

The number of creations you could make from a box of Lego isn’t limited by the size, shape, colour, and number of blocks in the box. It’s the endless combinations of these blocks that put creativity at the heart of reusing the same blocks over and over again.

To steal like an artist isn’t to copy and paste. It isn’t blatant plagiarism or lifting or infringement of copyright. It is to be inspired by the combinations of imitations and incremental changes that you bring together. In the endless combinations of imitations, this highest form of flattery, comes your synthesis.

How can you, in your attempts to create something new, steal like an artist?

If you have a question for Marc, upload an audio recording for it to be featured on a later Q&A episode!